


Half Past Too Early

by promiscuouslyCaliginous



Series: ALICE IN WONDERLAND AU [2]
Category: Alice in Wonderland (Movies - Burton), Alice in Wonderland AU - Fandom
Genre: Brief battle descriptions, Cat figuring out his past, Conflicting Timeline, F/M, Gay Characters, Insomnia, M/M, Memories, Narcolepsy, Narcolepsy/Insomnia, Not much detail, War, Young!Cat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-02
Updated: 2018-02-02
Packaged: 2019-03-12 19:40:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13554216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/promiscuouslyCaliginous/pseuds/promiscuouslyCaliginous
Summary: When Cassiel was just a kit, a meager age of fifteen, he was conscripted to work in the Queen's army. He assumed he would die. He never thought being alive would hurt so much.





	Half Past Too Early

A young man lay alone in a bed unbelonging of him, remembering and reminiscing of the times that had gone by him as if the blink of an eye. Of course, he wasn't really alone. It was rare he ever was, now that he had caught the company of his partner and those he was surrounded with. He got those sparing moments of peace, but as said, they were few and far between. 

He had always had a problem sleeping at night, ever since he was a young kit. He would go to play with the others among the singing of the trees and fall asleep where he stood. As he grew older, he found himself dozing off in the classes the duchess offered to teach him. She punished him by throwing plates at the wall, scaring the cat awake and the adrenaline into his system. He couldn't just stop falling asleep, though. But he tried, he did. 

His lessons ended abruptly, with the knocking of those regal soldiers on the solid brown door of the Duchess' home. Those big soldiers with their swords and helmets, shielding them from anything the Duchess could throw or Cassiel could try. He was young, only 15. Too young a boy to be fighting in a man's war. In the end, Cassiel went quietly, marching with his head down between the two. 

The first day, they fitted him for armor. The first week, he skipped drills and training in favor of eavesdropping on war councils and finding out plans without notice. When he was found out he attempted to fight his way out of trouble, resulting in his restraint for a time in the cells.

The queen came the next week to see him. Someone had snitched, probably the very officer that had pulled Cassiel off, kicking and screaming. His hands had come away bloody. That was the first time he had ever harmed a human.  
Only the first. It wouldn't be the last time. 

She sat patiently as he tried to explain himself. She never tried to stop him, waiting until he ran himself out of excuses.  
And then she offered him a position.  
It was clear he couldn't be on the front lines, his fighting style was ragged and uneven and efficient, as opposed to the open and wide stance of a soldier. He had shown great potential in how he stayed invisible and got the information he wanted. So she offered him a place at her side, finding information from the other side.  
From there, he learned. He mastered the rapier; a long, thin blade.  
He had always been able to walk silently, that was never the problem. He could not teleport, but he could manipulate his surroundings to make himself disappear. And to make it look like he was there when he wasn't. Quite helpful.

So the boy learned and grew, developed and changed himself where he saw necessary. He was made to be molded, though he never truly let himself be shaped by the Queen's many instructors. He kept his inquisitive nature, he made sure to always question what he thought immoral or wrong, and he fought for that which he saw as Right. 

At the age sixteen, he started listening in on war councils, at first without permission. When he was inevitably caught, they welcomed him with open arms and a seat at the table. That he never actually sat in, of course. Why sit in a chair when they could sit on the table, or drape themself annoyingly across the young Hatter's shoulders?  
(This was before he did it out of jealous possessiveness, of course. He just liked to annoy the young man after made to babysit him at the ball. He was quite amusing when ticked off, especially if Cat could get him to draw that broadsword out of his precious hat.)  


But he was allowed, and that is exactly what he wanted. Just as he was young, he found himself falling asleep during meetings under the pretense that he was safe enough to do so. They went without instance for a long time, other than the occasional spat between the Cat and the Hatter, one baiting the other to fight until they were both yelling across the table and the Queen herself had to rise and part them. Cassiel loved getting close enough to see the embers in the man's eyes when they got to this. Just his fury sent a shiver down his spine and a grin onto his lips. He drew great satisfaction when this happened, smirking at the man from the safety of the Queen's left side. 

His first battle had him silent for weeks, unable to forget the face of the young soldier he had met. He never had reason to kill before the first battle. He was never driven to the point of lunging forward, his blade thrust before him and into the young man's chest. Someone said he had died instantly, when they found Cassiel sat with his knees to his chest, tail curled around himself next to the body, hours later. Cassiel could never seem to remember who had comforted him, only felt a hand between his shoulderblades feeling bigger than the space there, gently guiding him away and to a medical tent where he could tend to his own injuries. Not that he felt them, of course. He demanded they bury the man he killed in a separate grave. They refused, so he stood up late digging the grave himself.  


The Right Side and the Left Side never really got along. Especially when Cassiel got cocky and would pull a kink card, then his shit was really fucked. They never really got along, not until they were forced to work together in the midst of a raiding battle against the cards. Not until Cat was under fire by the archers, weaving and dodging his way in between and out of the way of the way of the arrows.  
Not until he felt a hand at his collar, yanking him back as an arrow whizzed by, lodging into a nearby tree. At the angle, it would have been a clean shot to the head, right through his ear.  
Both boys had looked at the arrow in horror, and back at the other.  
Hatter boxed him over the ear and scowled, growling out, "Fuck you, you're not allowed to die."  
As if on instinct, Cat, holding his still-ringing ear as the shock seeped out of him, hissed back, "I do what I want."

The two were silent for a long moment, before the Cat spoke up again.  
"Thank you, though."  
A grumbled "You're welcome. Just don't do it again."

So what did he do, naturally?  
He did it again. Hatter saved his tail just in time, of course. The next battle they were not commanded to work together, though they found it easier to do than the lone-wolf saga they had been on. On that battle Cassiel and Desmond wound around each other, back to back, slaying down enemies Left and Right. They called warnings to the other, and it would later be said from Hugh that it looked almost as if they had been dancing, the way they moved so fluid-like.  
(Ironic, Cat hates water)  
That night, they celebrated with the Hare and the Mouse. 

It became clear Cassiel could not hold his liquor. Hatter simply laughed and tended him in his hangover. 

The two grew close, even as the young man grew up. At seventeen, he was publically announced a traitor to the kingdom of the Queen of Hearts.  
At eighteen, he was almost arrested. Multiple times, actually. He always wiggled out of it.  
At age nineteen, he was already battle-worn and tired. Though his wild grin and bouncing words never did, he let himself draw up a facade of strength and power. 

He was really just a kid.  
Not even twenty, and he had already seen too much death. Too many shapeless faces and faceless bodies littering the battlefield. 

At age twenty-one, he made a mistake. A mistake that cost him hell. The worst year and a half of his life, a year of silence and pain (both outwardly inflicted and those wounds he kept putting on himself.) He kept the Hat nearly a month after the man returned, but cleaned it up and put it in a box, setting it on the Hatter's doorstep for him to find.  


The man who he thought to be his best friend, his lover, his person  
( before he betrayed him and left him to the soldiers and left him for dead )  
Utterly ignored his existence. Cassiel watched him, going unsleeping for days at a time to ensure his safety. Every time He showed pain or those horrible, wretched scars on his neck  
( your fault, cas, you know it was all your fault you could have saved him )  
He would cringe away. 

 

Thank the gods that year passed. Cassiel still slept scarcely, though Desmond had welcomed him into his home. Even though they were together, Cassiel still blamed himself. Even though they were both safe, Cassiel never left his side. 

 

A pair of warm arms startled the young man from his remembrance, slipping gently around his waist as the person attached to said arms slowly pulled himself up. Desmond hummed under his breath, his mussed-up hair tickling at the back of Cassiel's neck as he nuzzled it gently. The young man allowed himself to relax in his lover's hold, his ears drooping with his posture as he let the warm breath wash over him. 

"Come back to bed, dear."


End file.
